The History of Constantius & Pulchera

by Anonymous

THE

HISTORY

OF

Constantius & Pulchera.

OR

Constancy Rewarded.

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"O NEVER let a virtuous mind despair,
For constant hearts are love's peculiar care."

"FORTUNE her gifts may variously dispose,
And these be happy call'd, unhappy those;
But Heav'n's just balance equal will appear,
While those are plac'd in hope, and these in fear:
Nor present good or ill, the joy or curse,
But future views of better, or of worse."

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Printed by T.C. CUSHING, Salem ; 1795.

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TO THE

YOUNG LADIES

OF

COLUMBIA,

THIS VOLUME,

Intended to inspire the mind with fortitude under the most unparralleled MISFORTUNES,

AND TO

Represent the happy consequences of VIRTUE and FIDELITY,

IS INSCRIBED,

With Esteem and Sincerity.

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THE

HISTORY

OF

CONSTANTIUS & PULCHERA.

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IN the suburbs of the city of Philadelphia, in the soft season of the year, about one o'clock, on a moon shining morning, on the terrace of an high building, forty feet from the ground, appeared a most beautiful lady of the age of sixteen—she was clad in a long white vest, her hair of a beautiful chestnut color, hanging carelessly over her shoulders; every mark of greatness was visible in her countenance, which was overcast with a solemn gloom, and now and then, the unwilling tear, unnoticed, rolled down her cheek.

She cast her eyes around, taking a survey of the garden below, and the places adjacent—a fixed melancholy, apparently, increased on her countenance, and now and then the big sigh would burst from her labouring bosom—more than once she attempted to return into the chamber from which she had made her appearance—and then would appear unresolved. At length, taking a chair, and seating herself near the side of the terace, and after a few moments of expressive silence, she thus uttered herself.

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“O cruel fortune! O more cruel parent!—when shall I again behold my adorable CONSTANTIUS? but why do I mention him? why do I recall his loved ideas? He is gone,—I am banished forever from him, cloistered up in this unblessed mansion—debarred from him, for whose face I could only wish to live!—But I must deface his memory.—O for one draught from the river Lethe, that the tender feelings of my distracted bosom might no more be harrowed up by his recollection! Alas! vain is the wish; the impression on my heart is so deep, that it cannot be defaced but by annihilation!—Can I ever eradicate from my mind his lovely features, his charming disposition, his fine sense, with all his finished accomplishments! No, sooner than that could be the case, the adamant would vegetate. All impossibilities will become practicable, sooner than I could forget that flood of transport with which I surrendered my heart to him, and took delivery of his in exchange, and called upon Heaven to register the indissoluble contract.

Oh! the effusion of extacy of that happy moment, the soft remembrance of which serves no other purpose than to plant daggers in my distracted bosom. Why should a father be lost to every tender feeling, and tear me instantaneously from the summit of happiness, and place me in the focus of torment!—“never more to see him!” The cruellest accents which were ever uttered by one who is totally unworthy the name of “father!” Has he assassinated him? or has he procured his manumission to some foreign barbarous land? O could I but once more see him, though it were but just long enough to bid him a final farewell—O could I but have the satisfaction of taking my leave of him, though it were in the agonies of death; how would I wash his mangled limbs with tears, and kiss

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the departing soul from his quivering lips! How would my soul burst through the shackles of its clay tenement, and bear him company through the unexplored regions of Elysium! but in vain the wish.—But what doth my eyes see passing through the moon shade of the garden? It is my dear, beloved CONSTANTIUS, or his spirit returned from the Elysian fields! But hark, I hear his footsteps, it is he, and not his spirit—Once more have my optic nerves reanimated my almost deserted body—CONSTANTIUS! CONSTANTIUS! once more your PULCHERA beholds you; my eyes are enchanted at the prospect, though bars of iron hold me from your embraces! Three bolted doors secure me from you—yet I behold you, and never more will I complain of adverse fortune, if I can but expire before you are taken from my view, dear CONSTANTIUS! CONSTANTIUS!” He lifted up his eyes and beheld her—with the strongest emotions of elevated joy, he exclaimed, “my dear PULCHERA, it is enough! once more I do behold the object to which in my mind I had given a final adieu!—driven from your arms by a father, who till the fatal moment had expressed his approbation of me in the most flattering terms, with a ferocity which I never before believed human nature capable of, he drove me from his house, after having torn from me the delight of my eyes, and ravisher of my heart—tell me, my dearest PULCHERA, what was the cause of this strange alteration of conduct in him, whom once I thought worthy to be called your father.”

The distressed PULCHERA replied,—“Ambition, cruel ambition is the cause of our misfortune—no man was ever pleased with another than my father was with you, until Monsieur Le Monte, only son and

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heir to a rich nobleman in France, waited on him, and offered to make me his wife, giving a most inchanting description of the honors and pomp he would advance me to—the temptation was too great for him to withstand—the anticipations of tinselled greatness took the ful possession of his soul—he promised Monsieur that I would be his—he soon informed me of my destination, and I could see joy sparkling in his eyes when he reflected on the good fortune to which he fondly imagined my good stars had destined me.—In vain did I remonstrate with him, that by my own voluntary consent I had formed and indissoluble union with my dearest CONSTANTIUS, and that love had cemented us beyond the power of separation; and while I was going on with my most pathetic lamentation for his conduct, your approach interrupted me—a degree of rancour, which till then I supposed him totally incapable of, appeared in his visage, and your own recollection will furnish you with ideas of his conduct, until he drove you from the garden in which we were, and gave you the solemn assurances you should never see me more.

He then secured me in the chamber communicating with the terrace, on which you see me forty feet high; and tomorrow I am to embark for France, in a packet, lying in the river, with Monsieur, to be his forever”—Here her voice failed her, and she almost dissolved in a flood of tears. CONSTANTIUS was on the rack at this fatal intelligence—in despair he drew his sword, and was on the eve of falling on its point, thereby putting a period to an existence which he no longer could consider as a blessing; but fortune, which always favours the virtuous, suggested to his mind a tow line he that day had observed in his store, which had been left there by accident—he cries out,

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PULCHERA, be contented a few moments, and I will relieve you. So running to his store, which stood not far distant, he tnkes the tow line, and lashing three oars at the end of each other, made the rope fast to the end of them. He by this means reached the rope to PULCHERA, who disengaged it from the oar, made it fast to one of the bannisters of the terrace, by which means she descended, tho' the knot by which she made the rope fast, slipped before she had got to the ground, yet she was so near it that she received no material damage thereby. Never, perhaps, was joy more triumphant than on this occasion: he straitway conveyed her to his chamber, where the remainder of the night was spent in a far more agreeable manner than the former part thereof had been.

Never was there, perhaps, a greater transition from doleful anticipations to real joy, than had been experienced by PULCHERA; for nothing could be more distressing to her than the idea of being forever separated from CONSTANTIUS; to be forced by cruel parental authority from her home, her friends, and from every pleasing prospect, into a foreign land, and there to be shackled for life to a man to whom she had the most fixed and irreversable aversion, and from whom she had no other conceivable way to escape than through the avenue of death; thus circumstanced, to be in a manner bordering on the invisible world, and divested of all her fearful apprehensions, at the same time to find herself in the full possession of him, was dearer to her than all things else, was well nigh too hard for her. They scarcely had finished their reciprocal congratulations when the clock advertised them that two hours of the last half of the night were expended, when CONSTANTIUS informed her that safety required her to be put in some place more

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secure from the researches of her father who would doubtless make the most vigorous efforts to recover her. This piece of information gave a surprising shock to PULCHERA, who till that moment had considered herself in perfect security ; various schemes of safety were proposed by each of them, not one of which on examination proved admissible; at length the dawn of day approaching, necessity obliged them to leave their present place of retreat, and conclude on some place of security after their departure from the haven.

In this determination they quitted the chamber, hand in hand through the meadows, while invention supplied the place of conversation, until they wandered down the banks of the Delaware some miles, when on some occasion, PULCHERA being a few rods behind CONSTANTIUS, as just entering a short turn of the bank, he was seized by half dozen armed men, who hurried him on board of a boat. PULCHERA, by means of the feeble rays of light which was retained by the atmosphere, had a dim prospect of this transaction; and although what she esteemed as her summum bonum was torn from her, yet so sudden was the onset, and so complete the surprise, that it summoned all the tender and fearful feelings which female nature is susceptible of ; and PULCHERA retired behind the opposite declivity of the bank, out of' the prospect of the scene, and secure from their view. Dreadful were the sensations which she experienced; her apprehensions of personal danger being at last in some measure abated, the safety of CONSTANTIUS in the next instance occupied her distracted bosom; she burst into a flood of tears and exclaimed, “Oh ! Heavens, where is he ! what have they done with him ! he is gone ! never more shall my wretched eyes

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behold him! he has fallen a prey to relentless British barbarity!—he must expire in some loathsome prisonship, or give up the ghost in some forlorn death-impregnated dungeon, without a friendly hand to close his eyes when they are dimmed by death! Why did I not like a true lover (as I thought I was) press forward to him, and have been a partner in his misfortune? Had I been worthy the name of a lover. I would have done it; but I was a stranger to love, though I professed it, and now I am justly left to suffer torments greater than would be probable on any circumstances where he was present. But can I not yet get to him?—She ran to the bank of the river, where he was seized by the party, but nothing of him or his captors could be discovered—Frantic in despair, she beat her breast, tore her hair, cursed her fate, and prayed for annihilation, and was just about committing her body to the watery grave, when she was prevented therefrom by her father taking hold of her arm.

The consternation she was now in, is more easily conjectured than described. Her father, unacquainted with what had happened to CONSTANTIUS, any further than?he gathered from the exclamations of PULCHERA, suffered her to stay there no longer, but instantly conducted her home, and confined her in an upper room, leaying her to the reflections of her own mind, where sleep and comfort were equally strangers to her.

The next day her father entered her chamber in a pleasant air, inquiring after her health, and saying a variety of pleasant tilings, taking no notice of her elopement:—At length in soft accents, he observed fo her that this was the day on which M. Le

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Monte proposed to embark with her to his native country, in order to make her his wife; aud that all he waited for was to be informed of her readiness to attend him. Her father was abort to proceed, but was interrupted by PULCHERA, who thus accosted him; “Dear father, the obligation of paternal authority, and the duty of filial obedience, are among the first ideas which took place in my mind—and with such forcible lessons have those duties been inculcated on my mind, that nothing will ever be able to deface them; and I shall make it my first business, as long as I retain a rational existence, to practice the one, and submit cheerfully to the other. But, deir and respected father, the barely naming of M. Le Monte to me, under my circumstances, cannot fail of giving me sensations worse than the most studied torture of the Wheel and Rack. But was I at own disposal, you, Sir, could command nothing that I could hesitate at obeying! but I am not my own—At your special leave and request, I have in a most solemn manner given up myself to CONSTANTIUS, and am no more my own—he took full possession of my heart when I gave him my promise, and I have neither power nor inclination to take it back. You, Sir, was present and ratified our contract by your most explicit approbation thereof; and therefore cease to possess the right or power of disposing of me again: Pray, dear Sir, give these considerations that weight which they deserve: remember that I am under the most solemn obligations to my dear CONSTANTIUS, that Heaven has recognized it, and that a violation thereof would involve me in the horrid sin of perjury, which would eventually deprive me of every species of peace here, and prove endless misery to me hereafter. Consider also, I pray sir, that Le Monte is as odious to me as

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CONSTANTIUS is agreeable—that his temper and disposition are naturally fierce and cruel to the last degree—that it is one of the articles of his religion, that " no faith is to be kept with hereticks," and such, you are sensible, he esteems me—that he despiseth that holy religion, whose principles, in my early infancy, you have taught me to have the highest regard for, as being inseparably connected with my future welfare. I hope you will reflect suitably on these things, and not let the idea of the pomp and show of tinselled greatness, and the palace near a Monarch's court, induce you to destroy the present peace and future welfare of your only child."

Her father listened to what she said, until she had gone through ; when with a stern aspect he replied, "Poor silly creature, your folly would be your utter ruin, had you not a lather living to bridle your giddy passions: but to reason with a person void of all rationality is no part of my business. Remember you are under my government, and that my will is your law ; that nothing will be able to divert me from a purpose of having Le Monte for my sonin-law; and you may as well submit to my pleasure quietly as to be dragged to it by force, which will be the case if you prove refractory. As to your CONSTANTIUS, he is a man whose fortune does not exceed that to which you are born, but Le Monte has an inexhaustible fund, both of riches and honor." Thus saying, he left her to her own doleful reflections. Sleepless and wearisome moments were her companions until the next morning, ivhen a servant of the family entered the room informing her that it was her father's pleasure that she should prepare herself to breakfast with Le Monte and himself; at which he left the room throwing into her lap a newspaper of that day. She took

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up the paper, and the first thing she espied therein, was the fatal intelligence that CONSTANTIUS, after he had been taken prisoner by the British, proved so franticly refractory, that in a fit of rage one of the officers had sheathed his sword in his heart, and he was dead!—at the reading of which, poor PULCHERA swooned away, and fell on the floor; the noise of which brought the servant again into the apartment, for, by his master's orders, he had waited at the door to observe her. He, seeing her in that condition, called up the family, and a long time it was before they could restore her to her senses; and when at last it was effected, with eyes starting with horror, she exclaimed, "He is gone! He is gone! CONSTANTIUS is no more! had it not been for my ciuel father he would still have been alive and with me; but untimely death hath closed his eyes ; and you, O my father, must be answerable for that and all its consequences! But you shall be disappointed; never will I be Le Monte's; if I am deprived of him in life, I will still be his in death; he has my heart, and I will never give it to another. I will descend to the grave! I will retire from the theatre of this world, which has no longer any thing in it to allure me, and will seek that peace in the unexplored regions of futurity, of which I am deprived here by a relentless father."

To no purpose did her father attempt to reason with her, telling her, that as CONSTANTIUS was dead, she was absolved from her obligations—that she, in consequence thereof, was again under parental disposal—that now she had no excuse of duty to CONSTANTIUS—that that religion which she the day before spoke so highly of, made it her duty now to submit to the dictates of her father, and that if she refused, she must lose his blessing and her own peace of

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conscience here, and be sure of the indignation of her maker and judge hereafter; and that for her to continue obstinate would be of no service to her, as she was totally in his power, and that he was fully detertimed she should, that very night approaching', embark with Le Monte. She observed to him, that to urge the death of CONSTANTIUS as an argument for her again coming under his disposal, when at the same time he was the guilty cause of it, did not carry any great matter of force with it, and that it was enough for him to deprive her of CONSTANTIUS, without adding a curse of little less magnitude to her misfortune; for the joining her to Le Monte would add as much to her wretchedness as the depriving her of CONSTANTIUS.

Her father finding expostulation had no kind of effect upon her, withdrew, to prepare for her embarkation; and the evening following forced her inlo a coach, wllich conveyed her, in the course of the night, to the wharf where lay the ship in which Le Monte was to return to France, waiting for her arrival. She was hurried on board—and the wind being favorable, they hoisted sail, and in a few days lost eight of the American shore. Grief, amazement and horror, occupied the breast of PULCHERA, though Le Monte used every effort to recommend himself to her, but to no purpose. She replied to him, that it was in vain for him to attempt what was totally impossible—that her aversion to him was so great that time and circumstances would never be able to efface it—that though he had the power over her body, yet her mind was and should continue, free—that she never would give him her hand or heart, and that he might rest assured he would never have the satisfaction of being her husband—that even the crown of France

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was too trifling a toy to have any effect on her mind. In discourses like this they passed a tedious passage of thirty one days, when one morning the light presented to their view three British ships, at not more than half a league's distance, to the leeward of them; fight was impossible,and in a few minutes the nearest of the ships fired a shot across their bow. The Captain of the French ship called his officers together and held a momentary council of war, the result of which was to strike their colors, and yield themselves prisoners of war ; which was done immediately.

The captain and some of his principal officers, together with Le Monte and PULCHERA, were carried on board the commandant's ship, but whnt was the surprise of PULCHERA, when on board of the captor she beheld her lost CONSTANTIUS!

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